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By Andrew Newton on 13 Jan, 2010 - 03:32 UTC

Well, here is confirmation that Hillary Clinton's State Department was briefed on Google's delivery of an ultimatum to China over censorship.

 

The text of the statement:

 

Statement on Google Operations in China

 

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State Washington, DC

January 12, 2010

 

We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions. We look to the Chinese government for an explanation. The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy. I will be giving an address next week on the centrality of internet freedom in the 21st century, and we will have further comment on this matter as the facts become clear.

 

There is no indication as to whether they were briefed before the move or subsequently, but for reasons given in my earlier post I think the State Department knew perfectly well this move was coming. The allegations against China that the statement refers to are unlikely to be new to any degree, and certainly would have been known at the time of Clinton's meeting with Eric Schmidt and other CEOs last week.

 

Such meetings I am sure happen regularly with various industry heads. My point is simply that this move by Google has to be seen as a private firm coordinating its foreign policy with that of US national foreign policy. Not a new idea (think oil companies for starters) but interesting in an era of radical transparency, corporate responsibility and "Do no evil". It's also intriguing here because the move is not - as far as I can see - the kind of cynical, manipulative coordination between private and public foreign policies that we saw in advance of the Iraq war (or again, earlier oil interests), but a development that is at least hooked on a genuine issue of human rights (privacy, speech).

 

For those suggesting this is simply Google scuppering other tech companies in China because its own position is weak, I think it highly unlikely. If my main argument is correct, this move either arose out of or would have at least been mooted at the meeting of industry leaders with Clinton last week. They all face the same problems in China. Perhaps it was agreed that Google.cn would be sacrified as shot across China's bow precisely because it had the weakest commerical position of those present. If alternatively Microsoft had taken this position, what are you holding in reserve as a threat? Google.cn?

 

 

In a timely follow up to my post yesterday on whether companies need a foreign policy, Google has effectively delivered an ultimatum to China.


The ultimatum essentially says "let us provide uncensored Google in China or we will shut Google.cn". Naturally, no one expects China to accede to Google's wishes.


The background an a good analysis are provided by Imagethief here.


Imagethief does not mention the meeting between Internet business leaders and Hillary Clinton last week, and I cannot help but feel that the timing of this announcement is linked to that meeting even if there are broader events leading up to this. Eric Schmidt is simply too close to the Obama administration to do this on the fly. Certainly to China it will look like it is, and if there is one thing that was acknowledged in that meeting it is that any stand US companies take in relation to human rights in China will be viewed by China as a proxy move by the US.


While Imagethief notes and the Wall Street Journal implies that Google's eventual withdrawal from China on human rights grounds makes it really difficult for Microsoft to remain, I would be very surprised if Microsoft, the State Department and others did not already know of the move before Google dropped today's bombshell.


 

ADVERTISEMENT

US-based corporations are intensifying their lobbying of Congress in light of the Obama Administration's scrutiny of corporate tax deferral, under which rules corporations avoid paying income tax by parking their profits offshore in tax havens. 

 

Opponents of deferral say it provides incentives for corporates to move jobs and operations overseas and costs the US billions in tax revenue that must be compensated for by emptying the pockets of individuals.  Corporations claim that deferral is only fair since other countries allow their corporates to avoid taxation at home, too. 

 

Wall St Journal: "In recent days, groups including the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Foreign Trade Council have helped form a lobbying coalition called Protect America's Competitive Edge that is devoted specifically to the issue. A letter sent to Congress last month opposing the plan was signed by 200 trade associations and companies, including General Electric Co., Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp., McDonald's Corp., Merck & Co. and Microsoft Corp."

 

What they'll say in the event of an international agreement to crack down on tax havens, who knows.

A handy guide to greener electronics
By A P Newton on 03 Apr, 2009 - 04:27 UTC

Greenpeace have just released their eleventh guide to greener electronics, laid out in handy thermometer, or if you prefer, speedometer form.  At the bottom, Bad end: Nintendo, HP, and Microsoft; at the top, Better end: Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Philips.

A new report from the US-based National Labor Committee accuses high tech companies of permitting dehumanising conditions in their supply chains.

According to CSR Asia the report, entitled "High Tech Misery in China ", focuses on companies using Meitai Plastic and Electronics, a keyboard supplier.

An independent audit is to be carried out by the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), although a local government official has insisted that the factory is regarded as a model employer in the town.

Companies sourcing from Meitai include IBM, Microsoft and Lenovo.
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While Microsoft and Intel have announced substantial layoffs, Google has demonstrated the real meaning of prudence.

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith set out his understanding of three natural moral sentiments: prudence, benevolence and justice.

Prudence formed the basis of his argument in The Wealth of Nations - not to the exclusion of the other virtues he thought natural to man, but simply as a simple device for explaining his understanding of how markets work.

To many commentators, including a goodly number of economists who choose to ignore Smith's broader legacy, prudence has been stripped down to the narrower notion of self-interest, that has in turn been highjacked as a license for selfishness.

Surely three separate events this week illustrate the difference between genuine prudence, and the bastardized version.

First Intel lays off 6,000 people. Then Microsoft follows suit with confirmation of 5,000 redundancies.

By contrast, Google has just turned in a set of great profit numbers after having focused on reining in expenses during 2008.

Rather than holding out for the last over-risky dollar, then overturning the lives of thousands of bright, competent employees, Google appears to have adopted a little self-control, and will in this recession actually be adding some staff.

As Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette is quoted as saying in the linked article "There's no sense in not being prudent".
Microsoft: too big to breathe
By Andrew Newton on 17 Jan, 2009 - 12:39 UTC
Microsoft has lost a complaint brought against it to the European Commission over the company's bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.

Europe has stricter competition law than the US, and the bundling has been held to constitute an abuse of Microsoft's market dominant position in the operating systems market.

Microsoft has been told it has 8 weeks to respond to the decision, after which it must comply with an order to distribute Internat Explorer browser separately from its operating system Windows.

The company previously lost an EU case against its bundling of Windows Media Player with Internet Explorer.

Personally, I find Internet Explorer too slow for my purposes and have converted over completely to using Firefox. Firefox's market share hit 20% last December for the first time. Makes you wonder what it could achieve if the 90% of people who use Windows OS were confronted with an informed choice of browser on Day 1.

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